About a half-mile stretch of Oceanside’s beach south of Tyson Street has virtually disappeared, the sand washed away by winter storms, uncovering fist-sized stones tossed onto The Strand during high tide.

“It’s at one of the lowest levels it’s been at in the past 20 to 30 years,” said Frank Quan, city harbor and beaches director.

Normally, sand dredged from the city harbor in April by the Army Corps of Engineers is spread over the beach, but this year the sand wasn’t deposited very far south of the pier because of grunion sightings, Quan said.

The sardine-sized fish leave the water to lay their eggs in the beach sand, and the Army Corps’ dredging permit doesn’t allow it to disturb the nesting fish, Quan said.

Over the summer, some sand will be pushed back onto the beach, but not nearly enough to replace what was lost over the winter, he said.

“We will get some sand washing up on the beach, but it’s not going to be a big beach,” Quan said.

In October, Oceanside had about 292,000 cubic feet of sand added to its beach as part of a $22.5 million regional beach replenishment project, but that sand went between Buccaneer Beach and just north of Hayes Street. It didn’t reach the portion of beach that abuts The Strand.

Longtime beach watcher John Daley said he’s worried that so much of the beach has been eroded that parts of The Strand could be at risk.

“The depletion every year has gotten where if we don’t have something happen to get more sand, it’s very likely that The Strand can be undermined,” Daley said. He said that happened about 30 years ago.

“This morning I walked down there, and there were all kind of rocks on The Strand,” Daley said Friday. “When I was a kid, they had to put plywood on the motels down there to keep them (stones) from breaking windows, and we’re getting to that point again where that’s a possibility.”

Waves are splashing over the riprap along the 400 block of The Strand, and that’s where Daley said he saw stones scattered in the street, tossed up by the surf.

Quan said he has found sand from construction projects in Del Mar and Baja, Mexico, that could be brought to Oceanside to replenish the beach, but City Manager Peter Weiss said there’s no money in the budget to pay to get it here.

“At this point, we don’t have any ongoing revenue sources for sand,” Weiss said.

He said the city could use part of the $4.5 million it expects from the sale earlier this month of the lease to the Laguna Vista Mobile Estates, but the council has talked of using that money for anti-gang violence programs.

“We’ll just add that to the list when we come to the decision on the Laguna Vista money,” Weiss said.

One catch is that the lease sale money would be a one-shot deal, helping the beach for only a year, he said.

“We would have to identify some long-term funding source,” Weiss said.